Reasonably Believing: believing in a secular world 
You don't need faith to be a good or happy person. But for me, faith does add an extra dimension: it provides a clear framework for making choices, helps to give meaning to adversity yourself, and offers the perspective that this life is a chapter in a larger, ongoing story.
An unanswered prayer for healing or deliverance does not mean a lack of faith or divine unwillingness. The real miracle is often not that a problem or physical pain disappears, but that you get the strength and insight to keep standing and move forward. Commandments and adversities are not there to filter us out, but to shape us and guide us to who we can become.
Feeling alone and being alone are two different things. Making God feel palpably present would make faith meaningless; it is precisely in the difficult moments that your choice to keep seeking Him matters.
More and more people feel empty or lonely, despite a life full of social media and social busyness. That is no coincidence: if the line between man and God weakens, the line to the other must suddenly bear all the weight alone, and it bends under it. An ancient insight from Genesis and a simple triangle show why, and what small gesture can restore that balance as early as this week.
My son Laurens has autism, and lately it has been weighing heavily on me. What did I do to deserve this, I sometimes think. What keeps me standing when an answer is not forthcoming are not great insights but fixed habits. And this week, a good conversation with a friend and the opportunity to serve myself brought me more together than I had expected.
Last time we left a skeptical eighteen-year-old behind on his way to Italy. In Assisi, he stumbles over a statue with pigeons — and over a memory his mind cannot place. Thirty years later, he is still not sure what happened. But it set something in motion that could no longer be stopped.
Every Sunday there are new faces in the church hall, and most of them do not return. Not because believing is difficult, but for another reason. About church as a means, not an end, about what individualism costs us, and about the body of Christ as an answer to a void that goes much further than religion alone.
God hears every prayer, but the answer rarely comes as you expect. Four reasons why the silence after a prayer does not mean no one is listening, with scripture references supporting each point.
Apostle Gerrit W. Gong dedicates an extensive video to AI, with clear warnings about what technology can never replace: prayer, growth through effort, real friendship, the silence in nature. I think you should pay attention to the triangle between God, the other and yourself where no algorithm should come between.
Peter steps out of the boat, walks on water, and sinks. The classic lesson says: make sure your faith is stronger. But what if that is not the point of the story at all? Christ knew beforehand that Peter would sink — and immediately reached out his hand. No reproach, no delay. That changes everything about how we look at this story, and how we look at ourselves in a time...
Reasonably Believing: believing in a secular world 